Back Home, But Still Reading
Friday: I returned a total of 23 books to the library. The person behind the Circulation Desk said "It must feel really good to return all of those."
I wasn't enough of a snob to tell her that actually, I had 20 more in my room where those came from, and I was planning to spend my afternoon requesting more books (about historical reenactment, since Tri-Co has pretty shabby resources) through ILL.
Earlier this week I was checking out six books, and all of them were missing those card-pocket things in the front, which led the student to say "Wow. None of these have been checked out in the last fifteen years." I smiled awkwardly. "I'm a history major. It happens a lot."
Many times, when I approach the circulation desk, one of the librarians behind it will say "Oh, I'll get Lauren's books for you," since I have something on hold almost all the time. There's something very strange about having the librarians recognize you as "that problem girl who reads a lot of books" on sight.
Once I was standing in line by the circulation desk and somebody else was checking out books. There was a problem with one of her books, and the student worker called back to the librarian to figure out what it was. The librarian looked up, looked at me, and said, "Lauren's account might have a problem because..." but of course this was the one time when I was going to present no problem whatsoever. I blushed.
This is a long way of saying that I check too many books out of the library. I'm the person who checks out the readings instead of printing them off Blackboard (example? The Cheese and the Worms), the person who orders three times as many resources for a project as she could ever conceivably use, the person who orders things on a whim when she knows she'll have no time to read them, the person who uses the library for self-help books.
At night, I played Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game instead of reading. Mea culpa.
Saturday: My father came to pick me up. I read War Games by Jenny Thompson on the way home. The book is about reenactors of 20th-century wars--I was reading it because I felt I should be doing academic reading, and this relates to a final paper topic, but unfortunately I have two papers due the week after break which I do not feel like reading for. My parents were both surprised to learn that there were Vietnam War reenactors.
When I got home, I devoured two old copies of Newsweek and appraised the contents of a new pile of books on my desk. My parents picked up a bunch of books at the Outsider Art Fair for me--essays by Dubuffet, the Judith Scott monograph, a neat book of A.G. Rizzoli drawings, something about the relationships between outsiders and modernism, pictures from the Shein collection. Yes, all of those names mean something to me, and yes, I collect books about outsider and contemporary folk art. When I grow up I imagine they'll make crazy coffee table books.
There was also a copy of Lucky, the memoir by Alice Sebold about her rape, lying on the stairs somewhere. I finished War Games last night and started another book about the Elgin Marbles--I think today can be a reading-for-myself day.
I wasn't enough of a snob to tell her that actually, I had 20 more in my room where those came from, and I was planning to spend my afternoon requesting more books (about historical reenactment, since Tri-Co has pretty shabby resources) through ILL.
Earlier this week I was checking out six books, and all of them were missing those card-pocket things in the front, which led the student to say "Wow. None of these have been checked out in the last fifteen years." I smiled awkwardly. "I'm a history major. It happens a lot."
Many times, when I approach the circulation desk, one of the librarians behind it will say "Oh, I'll get Lauren's books for you," since I have something on hold almost all the time. There's something very strange about having the librarians recognize you as "that problem girl who reads a lot of books" on sight.
Once I was standing in line by the circulation desk and somebody else was checking out books. There was a problem with one of her books, and the student worker called back to the librarian to figure out what it was. The librarian looked up, looked at me, and said, "Lauren's account might have a problem because..." but of course this was the one time when I was going to present no problem whatsoever. I blushed.
This is a long way of saying that I check too many books out of the library. I'm the person who checks out the readings instead of printing them off Blackboard (example? The Cheese and the Worms), the person who orders three times as many resources for a project as she could ever conceivably use, the person who orders things on a whim when she knows she'll have no time to read them, the person who uses the library for self-help books.
At night, I played Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game instead of reading. Mea culpa.
Saturday: My father came to pick me up. I read War Games by Jenny Thompson on the way home. The book is about reenactors of 20th-century wars--I was reading it because I felt I should be doing academic reading, and this relates to a final paper topic, but unfortunately I have two papers due the week after break which I do not feel like reading for. My parents were both surprised to learn that there were Vietnam War reenactors.
When I got home, I devoured two old copies of Newsweek and appraised the contents of a new pile of books on my desk. My parents picked up a bunch of books at the Outsider Art Fair for me--essays by Dubuffet, the Judith Scott monograph, a neat book of A.G. Rizzoli drawings, something about the relationships between outsiders and modernism, pictures from the Shein collection. Yes, all of those names mean something to me, and yes, I collect books about outsider and contemporary folk art. When I grow up I imagine they'll make crazy coffee table books.
There was also a copy of Lucky, the memoir by Alice Sebold about her rape, lying on the stairs somewhere. I finished War Games last night and started another book about the Elgin Marbles--I think today can be a reading-for-myself day.